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Tuesday, March 4

Wonderful Saturday

This past Saturday I had nothing planned, which means play time! So I was working on learning how to quilt feathers. As I mentioned these don't come easy for me so I'm trying different versions (with echoing, with open spines etc.) This practice of feathers is being done on a small lap quilt. In the past I practiced new patterns on a smaller section - a little mini quilt. Then I found out that once I moved onto a larger quilt it kind of changes everything. So now I do even learning curve practice on a larger quilt. It's just different than that small 14x14 square. Moving the small lap quilt around and quilting the feathers on it is harder but gives me a better practice session. I also started off with really big feathers.

I also received a wonderful package on Saturday with

2 beautiful 1950's vintage Japanese kimonos.

When Char told me she had these and asked if I wanted them of course I said yes! Not knowing the condition they were in I had planned on taking them apart and using the fabric for creating other projects. They were going to become a hat and a hip pouch for me to use at craft shows. Then I saw them...they will NOT be taken apart. They are beautifully hand sewed and in really good condition. The top one has hand embroidery.

These will be traditionally displayed from a long pole so the sleeves hang out. The photo above is just a quickie on a regular hanger. It was hard to get back to quilting after opening these. Then I remembered I'd seen a drill press for sale on FaceBook. It was at our local bead shop Red Dog Beads - the owner was upgrading the one in her shop and selling her old one. So I mention it to my hubby and he gets all excited and pops into FB to give it a look. He wants it! Needless to say so did I. So we call to see if it's sold yet and believe it or not it's still available. So we tell her we want it and are down there in under an hour to pick it up. I of course did a little shopping while I was there - huge surprise that is.Hubby has drilled holes into the top of my tool box (eeek) and the 2" long bolts have been purchased and hopefully this coming weekend it will be mounted and ready to play with. It's a metal drill so perfect for my jewelry making.

So it was a day of surprises!

I was pulled back to my jewelry bench to play with a few things I'd started.

Two pendants that were made from the sawed metal I'd done last week.

And of course the Zen Doodling habit continues. The other night as I was getting ready for bed a memory popped into my head from many years ago of a drawing I did. (sometimes my brain scares me) I just knew it would become a great outline for a doodle. Did I still have it? Yes - I'd kept it all these years. It had been done for a T-shirt design back in the 70's.

So using this as a base for my new design I came up with this.

I finished the ink work this morning and just had to do part

of the color. So here it is so far.

I will be having classes on Zen Doodles at

JoAnn on March 12th and May 10th.

I use a fine tip Sharpie for the bolder lines and a 0.5 Micron pen for the fine line. The color is done with water color pencils. It was hard to pull away from this but I knew I had paying work on the computer to do - digital drawing is fun too. I have a pile of show applications sitting here on the desk and will soon be sending them in and will get the list of shows for spring/summer posted on my Craft Show tab shortly.

3 comments:

Your drawings are just amazing. Nice feathers too! Another oh, week or so, and you'll have them down totally perfect. Congrats on the drill. Isn't it funny what we get excited about? I got a steam press off Craigslist last year, and every time I look at it, I still get so excited about that deal and how useful it is to me when I'm doing interfacing. Oh, and I got big old metal comb-binder once. It weighs a ton and it's kind of ridiculous to look at, but I use it all the time for my printed PDF patterns. In fact, my son is going to use it this week for making notebooks to sell at his school. Fun crafty stuff.